Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Back in 1998 when I started Design Hovie Studios in Ballard, I was shocked at how many cool yet unnoticed businesses there were in the neighborhood. Then, one day I had an idea... why not make a site that showcased all these great Ballard businesses? Now remember, this was 1998 and, although common now, these types of sites were very unusual. So uncommon in fact that even though I tried, I couldn't get businesses to fully comprehend what I wanted to do and chip in to pay for the site.

After a couple of months of pitching to no avail, I finally went ahead and made the site, inballard.com, on my own dime and went about placing various Ballard businesses that I thought were "cool" on the site. Year after year I continued to tinker and tweak the site all the time adding new Ballard businesses. The site grew in visitors and prominence and was listed on many travel sites throughout the world as the reference for the Ballard area.

Ballard merchants began to notice and I became very busy doing design work for these businesses. In addition, I was able to do sites for the Ballard Chamber of Commerce and for the Edmonds Chamber of Commerce as a direct result of inballard.com.

This went on for over 10 years until in the Spring of 2009 I was contacted by a group of Ballard merchants who wanted to do something to drive more shoppers to the Ballard area. After a couple of meetings tossing around various ideas, it was decided that the group would use inballard.com and the In Ballard theme to create the Summer, Tuesdays in Ballard campaign.

Together we pitched the idea to a group of over 50 Ballard merchants. The idea was so well received that we pulled together over 70 merchants who all chipped in to fund the Tuesdays in Ballard campaign. The campaign was a great success and even was named the year's best by Seattle Magazine!

My little Ballard site has finally grown up and is now the official site of the newly formed In Ballard Merchants Association. It's helping to pull together local Ballard merchants and drive more shoppers to the neighborhood. Exactly what I had hoped it would do over 11 years ago!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

As we're coming to the end of the holiday shopping season, we can now look back on what Design Hovie Studios and the In Ballard Merchants Association worked together to create for the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard this season.

We began by bringing together over 60 Ballard merchants who all contributed to fund the campaign. Next we created: a Ballard neighborhood walking map that listed and showcased all the sponsoring merchants, a Holidays in Ballard poster, Holidays in Ballard print and banner ads, hundreds of fun snowflake window stickers, and two large outdoor Holidays in Ballard banners that were hung in Bergan Place Park and on Ballard Aveune.

After the collateral was in place, we coordinated the lighting of Ballard and lit trees in Bergan Place Park and in Marvin Gardens Park and lit the historic Ballard Bell Tower. This was the first time in years that the area had been lit and the parks and surrounding shops sparkled.

Finally, the In Ballard Merchants Association put on 3 amazing December events thanks in great part to events chair Tiffany, owner of Mon Petit Shoe. On the 5th, they brought in Santa and Jay Dotson Photography took photos of kids with Santa in the old Bell Tower. On the 12th, DJ Vinny put on quite a show, playing a great mix of old and new Christmas tunes in Bergen Place Park. Then, on the 19th, with the help of over 20 volunteers, we lit up Ballard with 1,000 luminaria and made Ballard Avenue even more picturesque by providing horse drawn hay rides down the old brick streets.

It was a whirlwind but a very fun and rewarding campaign. Check out more details at inballard.com

Even though Design Hovie Studios is based in Seattle, I was born and raised in Chula Vista in San Diego County and still have a lot of contact with the greater San Diego and Southern California area. So, in an effort to better serve our growing client base there, we've added a local, San Diego phone number for the Studio. If you are in the area, you can reach us at 619 758 4207.

Design Hovie Studios is the creative company of international graphic designer Hovie Hawk. The studios (Seattle and Chelan) specialize in creating logos, brand identity systems, print collateral, and web design for local, neighborhood, boutique firms in the USA and Italy.

Design Hovie Studios

International graphic designer Hovie Hawk has been working professionally since 1993. He has worked in both Seattle USA and Milan Italy, and his design style has been heavily influenced by the Swiss International Graphic Design style. In addition to his role as Creative Director at Design Hovie Studios, Hovie is an adjunct professor in the Visual Communications Department at Seattle Pacific University.